Intel Meltdown and Spectre patches also causing issues with newer datacenter chips

Posted on Thursday, January 18 2018 @ 10:06 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
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A week ago, news hit the web that the patches for the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities in Intel's processors cause unexpected reboots. At the time, it seemed the problem was limited to certain Broadwell and Haswell processors but now the chip giant confirms the updates also cause issues with newer processors.

Basically, the patches can cause issues with all of Intel's latest generations:
Intel confirmed that patches for the security flaws can cause higher-than-expected reboot rates in Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake and Kaby Lake processors, said Navin Shenoy, general manager of the data center group, in a statement on Intel’s website.

The Kaby Lake chips are the company’s most recent offering.
At the same time, Intel also disclosed internal benchmark figures that lay out the expected performance hit. The chip maker downplays the issue and says web servers can expect a slowdown of about 2 percent, while online transactions at a stock brokerage may show a 4 percent hit.

However, Intel acknowledges that certain use cases will get a much more severe performance hit. For servers that store large amounts of data and need to retrieve it quickly, the performance slowdown can be as high as 18 to 25 percent. That's an awful performance hit, not in the least because of all the effort Intel has been making recently to pump its big data efforts. Bundle that with unscheduled reboots and this is definitely a giant mess for Intel.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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